Mulongoti counsels MMD corruption suspects

Mulongoti counsels MMD corruption suspects
By Moses Kuwema
Sun 25 Dec. 2011, 13:55 CAT

MIKE Mulongoti says people who are associated with plunder and corruption are liabilities to the MMD and will never give the party any political fortunes. In an interview, Mulongoti said all the people who had dented images needed to give the MMD a chance to redeem itself.

"They must go to the convention and let democracy prevail but all those who are perceived to be thieves in the MMD must give 'clean' party members a break to elect themselves with clean hands. Some of these people are appearing before police so what image are they portraying to the public? You are under investigations and you want to be president of a political party, you want to be chairman of a political party, what happens when you get convicted? It is the perception of people, people think you are a thief, it does not matter whether you go to court and you get acquitted, the perception of people is that you are a thief," said Mulongoti, a former chairman for elections in the MMD.

And Mulongoti said it was unfortunate that most people within the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the MMD were still clinging to their positions even after they failed to deliver victory for the party in the September 20 general elections.

"At the end of the day a political party is like a club, if your team did not perform well with a group of players who you thought were not good, just rejuvenate, you can still go and begin to score and win.

And for people to just start pretending that no they were elected a few months ago and they can't be blamed for losing, why did they get elected? Immediately you take over something you cannot start complaining, they did not do their job properly, that's why they lost," he said.

"And most of them were clinging to those positions, how many new people came into the NEC? It was the same old characters who were insisting that they were fit for leadership. They are responsible for the loss because they were threatening people, they were doing all sorts of things. If new blood had come in maybe the party would have even performed much better."

Mulongoti said people like himself who wanted to move the democratic agenda of the party forward were hounded out while some people he termed as cowards were watching.

"Some of those cowards were sitting, watching these things happen, to the detriment of the party and other members who were genuine. Today they are licking their wounds, let them continue licking their wounds, they must go and lick their wounds outside the party not in the leadership, they are a problem," he said.

Meanwhile, Mulongoti said the MMD should stop pretending that they had no money to hold a party convention.

"They were showing billions not long ago, today they want to turn around and say they have no money. Where have the billions gone to? They should not pretend, if it were in their interest they would have brought those billions to the front but now that some of them are under investigations, they are scared, that's why they are pretending that they have no money, they have money," insisted Mulongoti.